Royal Navy: HMS Prince of Wales finally leaves Portsmouth for Rosyth after spell of problems

Technical problems delayed the £3bn warship’s departure to Fife,

It had first been expected to sail on Monday but work was not completed in time to remove the giant propeller.

After another delay yesterday morning, HMS Prince of Wales finally left port at 11pm.

The vessel broke down off the Isle of Wight in August after sailing from Portsmouth Naval Base to take part in flight trials and diplomatic visits in the US.

Inspections by divers and engineers found that the Nato flagship’s 33-ton starboard propeller – the same weight as 30 Ford Fiesta cars – had malfunctioned with a coupling holding it in place breaking.

The carrier was taken back to Portsmouth for further examination by engineers from Babcock before the decision was taken for it to travel to Rosyth, where it was built, to undergo repairs in dry dock.

Her initial departure from Portsmouth Harbour was dependent on the problem being fixed and high tides, which occur every 12 hours and 25 minutes.

The Navy has not commented on how long the repairs at Rosyth are expected to take and how long HMS Prince of Wales will be absent from its role as Nato flagship.

It is understood it could take months, rather than weeks.

Its sister ship HMS Queen Elizabeth changed its autumn plans to travel to the US to take over some of the planned engagements.

This included hosting the Atlantic Future Forum defence conference in New York.

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Rear Admiral Steve Moorhouse, director for Force Generation – responsible for making sure navy ships are ready to deploy –described the fault as ‘extremely unusual’.

He said: ‘Royal Navy divers have inspected the starboard shaft of the ship and the adjacent areas and they have confirmed there is significant damage to the shaft on the propeller and some superficial damage to the rudder but no damage to the rest of the ship.

‘Our initial assessment has shown that coupling that joins the final two sections of the shaft has failed.’

A Royal Navy spokesman said the extent of repairs will be known once HMS Prince of Wales reaches Forsyth, and they are committed to getting her back on operations as soon as possible.